


The Ones We Hold Close

by iSaphura



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Gen, I promise, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, It's not all bad, M/M, Minor Character Death, My First Work in This Fandom, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18623902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iSaphura/pseuds/iSaphura
Summary: We are defined by the people around us, but what are they defined as when we aren't there? Lupin finds himself questioning the relationships he has with his crew, and how they have impacted each other's lives.





	1. The Inspector

**Author's Note:**

> First work on AO3! I used to be pretty active over on ffn (not in this fandom), but I decided to try it out over here. I am very, very new to the Lupin fandom, but this stupid thief and his crew have gotten me back into writing, so who am I to deny them and you the reader from reading what comes out of my head? Please note that at the moment of posting, this story is about 4/5th of the way written and is unbeta-ed, so I apologize for any discrepancies, mistakes, typos, that kind of stuff. This story started out differently than the way it is most likely going to end up, and there are probably some remnants of the original premise in there that haven't been taken out.  
> Also, I apologize if Lupin seems OOC. I don't usually write first person, but after trying to write this in third person, it was just more natural.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how I got here.

The last thing I remember, I was on the other side of the ocean, and then on the other side of the continent. Yet here I am, walking through a neighborhood in Tokyo rather than Brooklyn. I really don’t remember anything. Well, I remember who I am (Arséne Lupin III, at your service), and what I had for breakfast (eggs and bacon), and that… there was an argument? I think? Just before I woke up on a street bench thousands of kilometers away from where I was supposed to be.

It’s late, probably after midnight, but with the time difference, it’s still daytime back in New York. I tried to get a hold of Jigen or Fujiko, but Fujiko doesn’t answer and the lady at the motel where we were staying at said there was no one staying in the motel under the name “Dan Jones”, a.k.a. Jigen’s fake ID. So with no word from my friends and no yen in my pockets, I’ve been wandering around wondering what to do. I don’t even have American dollars to try and exchange. In fact, I have nothing: no money, no gun, no cigarettes, no clue what the hell is going on.

At least it’s a nice night, but it is getting late. The shops I walk past have long since closed for the night, and houses are dark so their inhabitants can sleep. The city itself goes on, though. I yawn and weigh my options, none of which are appealing. I don’t like the idea of trying to find an alley somewhere, especially since I’m likely to get jumped in this area, but I like the idea of breaking into somewhere even less. I have a few safe houses in the city, but they’re all in distant neighborhoods and I don’t have the keys or the money to get a ride.

A sound of pent up frustration crawls its way out of me. I wish I could remember! Come on, Lupin, think! I try to coax just some small clue, a hint, from my brain to what might be happening to me, why I’m here and not where I was this morning. All I manage to do is bring on the beginning of a headache, and I close my eyes against the flash of light that comes across them.

Then, I hear it. Like an answer to my prayers. A very messed up answer:

Pops.

Out of instinct I dive for cover and watch as he rounds the corner. I quickly notice something is off. For one, he should also be in New York. But more importantly, he is singing loudly off-key, slurring his words and stumbling around. Some lights turn on in some of the buildings, and the silhouettes of the inhabitants look down on the drunken inspector.

Well, he might arrest me, but spending a night in jail sounds better than any other option. I stand up and wave. “Hey, Pops!”

Zenigata stops and nearly falls over as he turns to face me. “Wha’ you want?”

“Oh you know, just passing through,” I say. “Pops, are you okay?”

“Never *hic* better.”

Pops is not okay. He stinks of cheap alcohol, he probably slept in his suit last night and has already puked. He also hasn’t shaved in maybe a day or two. In other words, he’s not himself.

So… no jail for me tonight. I better get some kind of cosmic karma on this.

“You live around here Pops?” I ask.

Zenigata waves and points. “Over there.”

“Okay, let’s get you home.”

I place one of his arms over my shoulders, and we continue down the road. Pops can barely walk straight, which makes it hard for me to walk straight considering he has probably twenty-five kilos on me. On more than one occasion he accidentally slams me into a wall. Somehow, we make it to his apartment building without landing on our faces.

“Which one is yours?” I ask.

“401,” Pops slurs.

I sigh, of course he would be on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator. Before we even get to the third step, an old man appears from one of the first-floor apartments. He looks boiling mad.

“Zenigata! There you are!” he shouts. “Do you have any idea how much trouble… what are you doing?”

“Taking this guy home,” I reply. Pops is by this point barely conscious, and if he passes out now there is no way I am getting him up four flights of stairs.

“Who are you?”

“Uh… his nephew?” Oh, smooth one Lupin.

“I didn’t know he had any extended family,” the old man mutters, and then adds, “Listen, young man, he needs to be out by the end of the week, or pay his rent! It’s two weeks overdue!”

“Overdue? That doesn’t sound like him,” I mumble.

“I wish I had never given him the apartment!” the old man continues, “I only did because he was on the police force with my son...”

“Hold up, _was_ on the police force? As in past tense?”

“Ye-es.” The old man squints at me, suspicious as to why a nephew didn’t know his uncle was no longer a police officer.

“Sir, may we have this conversation in the morning?” I ask, trying to stop Pops from sliding down the stairs.

The old man waves his hand and turns to return to his own apartment. “Very well, but remember he owes rent!”

Thankfully I get Pops to the right floor, find his keys, and open the door before he passes out completely and/or we wake the entire building. It takes me a few seconds to process what I am seeing: if I thought Pops was a mess, his apartment is even worse. Old instant ramen containers and beer cans are everywhere. There is dust on most flat surfaces. Everything is a mess. The air smells like old cigarette ash, stale beer, old food, and dirty socks. Which would be understandable if Pops was, well, _Pops_ : I rarely visit Japan these days, so he is never home. But apparently, along with me getting transported from one side of the globe to the other, Inspector Zenigata is no longer Inspector Zenigata.

“What the hell?” I whisper.

Taking a deep breath, I enter the apartment. Pops is barely supporting his own weight now, so I end up dragging him into the bedroom and manhandling him into the bed. I manage to wrestle him out of most of his clothes – pants, jacket, shirt, shoes – and leave him on his side to sleep it off. I don’t need him choking on his own sick, I need him to tell me what the hell is going on and why we are both in Japan when really we should be in New York.

With the Inspector taken care of, I focus on myself. I clear as much crap off of the couch as I can and flop down. It is not a comfortable couch to sit on, let alone sleep on, but at the moment I don’t have much of a choice. The floor is even less appealing. Apparently, I am more tired than I realize, because it feels like I close my eyes only to open them a few seconds later and find it is morning.

However, the crick in my neck tells me loudly about the several hours I spend lying on the beat-up couch of my rival.

The morning light reveals the extent of the mess that is Zenigata’s apartment. Stuff is _everywhere_. It looks like a bomb went off, or several bombs, and he never cleaned up afterward. The sight is shocking to see.

I notice off in the corner an interesting piece of destruction: the splintered and torn remains of a small family shrine. I know that Pops is proud of his ancestry: it’s part of the reason he became a police officer in the first place. So why would he destroy the shrine?

My investigation is interrupted by a knock on the apartment door. Peeking through the peephole, I see the old man from last night. I open it. “Good morning, sir.”

He tries to peer past me. “Is Zenigata in there?”

As if on cue, Pops lets out a snore that could rival a 747 taking off. “He’s still sleeping it off. Sorry for disturbing you last night when we came in.”

“Honestly, I’m glad he made it back,” the old man says. “You said you were his nephew?”

“Oh, uh, yeah!” I run my hand through my hair. “I’m, uh, Hikaru, his sister’s kid.”

And I’m the helmsman on the _USS Enterprise_. Wait, does Pops even have a sister?

The old man raises an eyebrow and lets my lie slide by. “I take it he doesn’t talk to his family much these days.”

“No, not really,” I say. I step out into the hallway and close the door. “What happened to him?”

The old man looks around, and once he is sure there are no other ears nearby, he says quietly, “From what I’ve heard, his wife left him and took their daughter with her.”

I had forgotten that Pops was married. He and his wife had separated just before he was assigned my case. They had a daughter: Toshiko. Sweet little girl with keen observation skills. She spotted me one day when I had passed by the park she was playing. I only intended to observe for a little while in a "not-stalker-okay-maybe-a-little-but-totally-not-creepy" way. Next thing I know, she is the astronaut princess of Mars and I’m her goofy alien sidekick. Won’t lie, it was a fun afternoon.

However, when her father found out, it was less fun. Zenigata descended upon us like a storm. Jigen, Goemon, and I had to split up for a while. Jigen ended up shaving his beard to get out of the country. Goemon just up and vanished like he usually did to the point where the police gave up looking for him. I was on the run for weeks, using every trick and skill in my arsenal just to stay half a step ahead of Pops and every single law enforcement officer in Japan. I ended up burning several safe houses in the process. Pops nearly caught me. No, he nearly _killed_ me. Eventually, I decided to leave Japan and go globetrotting for a while. Figured it would be better for my freedom and health, and that it would be much more fun.

Before I left I wrote Pops a letter, formally apologizing for interacting with his daughter, swearing on the grave of my namesake grandfather that I didn’t do anything to her, and that I would never step foot near his family again.

Pops got himself assigned to Interpol and continued chasing me, the bastard.

“He threw himself into his work until it wasn’t enough and then he threw himself into the bottle.” The old man shrugged. “I guess he showed up drunk one time too many, and he was dismissed. I haven’t seen him sober in weeks.”

“He wasn’t assigned to the Lupin case?” I ask.

“The Lupin case?” the old man says. “As in Lupin the Third? No, thank God. That assignment is a death sentence. Though what he’s doing to himself now isn’t much better”

I frown. Death sentence?

“But I do need his rent by the end of the week,” the old man says. “He can’t stay here any longer without it.”

“I’ll get you the rent money,” I reply. “Don’t worry, it will be in your hands by the end of the day.”

I know that, under normal circumstances, Pops would never accept my money or charity. But these are hardly normal circumstances and I’d hate to see the guy out on the street. The old man thanks me for what I am doing, and I return to Pops’ apartment. I check in on Pops to make sure he is okay and then clean myself up before heading out.

A newspaper falls to the ground when I pick up my jacket, and I notice my name on the front page: _Lupin the Third steals $50 million, seven dead._

Seven people…

_Dead?!_

I grab the newspaper and read the article. The paper is from two days ago, and the heist occurred at a bank I know I’ve never robbed. According to the paper, I went into the bank in broad daylight, held everyone hostage, cleared out the vault, and escaped. I killed two of the guards as I walked in, another one and a teller who tried to be heroes, two cops, and one of the hostages. Several other police officers and hostages were injured.

No. No, no, no, nononono… This isn’t happening. I feel like I’m having a bad dream. I pinch myself. It hurts.

I begin to dig through the other newspapers and find articles referring to other jobs I pulled. Some I remember doing, some I don’t. Almost all of them have a body count, and none of them make mention of Jigen, Goemon, or Fujiko. Just me, and often a crew of masked henchmen.

What the _hell_ is going on here? Is this what the old man meant when he said being assigned to my case was a death sentence? The old man… did he recognize me? Several articles have accompanying pictures: sometimes a mug shot, other times security camera stills where I am the only one not wearing a mask. In a few of them, I’m _smiling_ at the camera. If he did recognize me, then the cops are probably on their way, and I certainly can’t pay the man in cash for Pops’ rent.

I don’t have the time or my tools to create a proper disguise, so I have to improvise. I borrow a (relatively) clean coat and hat from Pops and adjust my height slightly. I can’t do much about my face, but if I can buy some cheap cosmetics I can fix that. I got Pops home and I’m about to pay his rent, I’m entitled to the yen in his pockets.

“An’ where th’ hell you think you goin’?”

I slowly turn around. Pops is standing in the doorway to the bedroom, barely half awake. His eyes are thin slits; he must have one hell of a hangover at the moment.

“Hey Pops, I didn’t hear you get up,” I say.

“Kinda hard to sleep through my landlord threatening to evict me,” he mumbles and staggers towards the bathroom. He pauses and asks, “Why’d you call me Pops?”

“Because I always call you that?” I answer.

“Except I don’t know you.”

“Y-you don’t?”

Panic is rising within me faster than I can compensate. First I show up in Tokyo with no memory, then rescue a drunk Zenigata from spending the night in the gutter, find out he’s about to be evicted and also isn’t a cop and not assigned to my case, and now he has no idea who I am.

What the fucking hell is happening?

“You okay kid?”

I feel like my head is spinning. “I, uh, I need some air.”

I yank the door open and stumble into the hallway, nearly crashing into one of Zenigata’s neighbors in the process. I can hear him calling after me, telling me to wait a second.

_“...damn it, Lupin, don’t...”_

A sound like screeching metal roars behind me. I am thrown forward, and a painful white light consumes me. I try to get up, to get out of the way, but I am pinned to the spot. Everything fades away until only the light and the pain remain.

And then I black out.


	2. The Lady

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meh, who wants to wait a week when this chapter is ready to go? It was really hard to figure out what Fujiko would be up to in this story, and while I'm not totally happy with how it turned out, I'm happier with this than with the other things I came up with. Also, fluff. I'm so awkward when it comes to writing this stuff, I'm sorry. Finally, I know I botched the local geography of Saint-Tropez and its harbor slightly. I haven't been in a *really* long time.  
> Enough apologies on my end, go read!

The light and pain fade away. I scramble to my feet and back up against a wall, gasping for air while my addled brain plays catch up. Nothing is making sense. I’m no longer in Zenigata’s apartment building, I’m back on the streets. The coat and hat I had borrowed from him are also gone.

Okay, Lupin, take it easy. Just breathe, nice and slow. Gather the information around you, just observe.

First: where am I? A town, maybe a small city. No skyscrapers visible from street level. Old town with brick sidewalks. Europe. A sign in a nearby window is in French. I’m in France.

Second: am I okay? Well, physically I feel fine. Mentally not so much.

Third: any other information? I’m in the fucking Twilight Zone.

My legs wobble and then just stop supporting my weight and I slide down to the ground. My mind flicks through the encounter I just had with Zenigata. The entire thing was surreal, I could never in my wildest dreams imagine Inspector Koichi Zenigata, the bulldog of the ICPO, turned into a drunkard ex-cop about to be evicted from his crummy little apartment. The man was born to be a cop and is one of the most driven and dedicated people I know. He is a man of principles. It isn’t right, what I saw wasn’t right...

Somewhere nearby, a woman screams.

The sound snaps me out of my sour mood and I jump to my feet. She screams again, and I take off running. The screams are close by, but also echo slightly off of the buildings which makes pinpointing the location a bit more difficult. As I get closer, I can hear other voices, male voices. Then suddenly…

Gunshot.

The woman screams once more.

I find the alley. Three men are standing above a figure on the ground. At least two are armed with guns, I can’t tell if the third has anything. As for me, I am once again sans gun, wallet, or anything else useful. So I do the most logical thing possible.

I lower my shoulder and charge them.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for damsels in distress.

By the time they realize I’m there, it’s too late. I slam into the nearest goon, which starts a domino reaction and all three are thrown to the ground. In the few seconds I have before they realize what just happened, I reach down and pick up the woman from the ground. She yelps in surprise as I throw her over my shoulder.

“Hold on!” I cry, and take off running.

The men start yelling, one starts shooting. I keep my head down and zig-zag until I’m out of the alley. We’re sitting ducks out on the street, I need to lose these guys fast. I may not know which city I’m in, but I know that – for the most part – all European cities have plenty of twists and turns to lose pursuers with. My gait opens up, and I start to fly. Soon I start passing more and more people. For once I am running towards people; with any luck, I can lose these goons in a crowd.

Ten minutes later, I think I’ve lost them. Which is a good thing, because I’m out of breath and my legs are burning. I’ve made it downtown, and the nightlife is in full swing. I can see a harbor full of superyachts down one of the streets. I glance over my shoulder to the woman on my back. “Hey, you okay back there?”

She doesn’t respond right away. I quickly search out a quiet corner. I lower her to the ground. Her blouse is ripped and her shoulder is scuffed up from being thrown to the pavement, but she doesn’t seem to have any other injuries aside from bruises. The gunshot must have just been a scare tactic, thank God.

The woman twitches as her injured shoulder bumps up against the wall. Her auburn hair falls away from her face. Two big, chocolate brown eyes look up at me.

I gasp. “Fujiko?”

Fujiko frowns. “H-how do you kn-know my name?”

“It’s your name, isn’t it?” I reply. I reach down and tear a strip of fabric from my shirt to wrap around her shoulder. “Look, this is going to sound weird, but where are we? I have no idea where I am.”

“San… Saint-Tropez.” Fujiko watches me as I wrap her shoulder. It’s not the best job I could do, but with my jacket on top we shouldn’t attract any adverse attention and we can get somewhere I can treat her wound properly. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”

“Saint-Tropez, eh?” I pull up my mental map of the town. It’s not a place I frequently visit, but I still have a nice little hideaway, perfect for when I need a vacation but don’t feel like leaving the magic of the French Riviera. “You’re in luck: I actually know a place. Can you stand? That’s it, hold onto me.”

Slowly she gets to her feet. She’s wobbly but easily mistaken for some tourist who’s had too much to drink. I pull off my jacket and drape it over her shoulders to cover the makeshift bandage and tuck my shirt in to hide the ripped part. We wander back onto the main street, and I figure out we’re only a block or two from my hideout.

“Fujiko, why were those guys after you?” I ask.

“How do you know my name?” she growls.

“Fujiko, it’s me,” I reply. “It’s...”

The look in her eyes makes me pause. There is no love in those eyes, no recognition, just apprehension. It’s not the look of someone who has lost their memory, it’s the look of someone who has never met you and is very confused as to why you know them. Zenigata springs to mind, and what happened with him: he had no idea who I was either, even though my face was plastered over several newspapers sitting not a few meters away.

I look into a shop window. My faint reflection stares back, looking as confused as I feel. The refection is my own: dark hair, gray eyes, pointy nose, wide mouth, long sideburns, a handsome blend of European and Japanese features. Yet neither Zenigata nor Fujiko recognized me.

“I’m Lu… is. Louis,” I say. I’m not sure what would happen if I said my name was Lupin. “I met you at a party a few months back, in Cannes? At the film festival?”

I couldn’t come up with a more blatant lie, but if I know Fujiko Mine (which I do), she would never pass up a chance at pocketing a few valuables while rubbing elbows and drinking champagne with the rich and richer, and I know she was in the south of France a few months ago around the time of the annual film festival. Hopefully, I’m just displaced in space and not time.

“Oh, sorry,” she says. “I met so many people...”

“That’s okay. But really, why were those guys after you?”

She looks down at the ground. “I ripped off their boss.”

“Oh.”

That’s Fujiko’s MO: go after some rich guy, get access to his riches, take it all and run. In a way, she does the same to me on a semi-regular basis. Jigen has been telling me for years I should leave her, or at least let him shoot her but… I can’t. There’s more to Fujiko than just living the high life and doing whatever is necessary to live that life. She and I… it’s something that defies words. She rips me off and stabs me in the back, but I still love her. And she loves me. It doesn’t matter what happens, I still drop everything and run to her side if she’s in trouble. As much as Jigen and Goemon would never admit it, she’d do the same for me… so long as it was a situation she didn’t put me in in the first place.

“Listen, you’re sweet, but I should go,” Fujiko says. “I don’t want you getting mixed up in my troubles.”

“Don’t worry about me, ‘Trouble’ is my middle name.”

She giggles. God, she’s adorable when she does that. I can’t hide the smile that comes to my face, but I manage to make it smaller than it wants to be.

“So then, Louis le Trouble, why did you help me back there?”

For those brief moments, I had forgotten she didn’t know who I was. My smile vanishes. I can’t tell her it was because I love her. “Because it was the right thing to do,” is the reason I give. “How can I just stand by while a beautiful woman is accosted by a bunch of thugs? Why, I could never live with myself!” I throw my head back and place a hand on my chest to strike a dramatic pose.

“Oh my hero,” Fujiko purrs.

My pose melts at the sound of her voice. It oozes like dulce de leche and sounds just as sweet. She slowly bats her eyes so that they sparkle. She pulls my chin down, and her lips push against mine.

The kiss lasts for the briefest of eternities. I start to wrap my arms around her, but she pulls away. I let. Every inch of me wants to embrace her and never let go. She smiles like a cat: curious, playful, dangerous. She’s one of the only women who can be scary sometimes when she smiles. I love her smile. It's a beautiful smile.

Over the years, I have contemplated proposing to her. I never do. It’s not that I can’t find a ring – I can get her any ring she wants – or that I chicken out. It’s that every time I think I want to pop the question, I realize it would kill her. I don’t really mind her sleeping around, or going behind my back, or backstabbing me. Okay maybe I mind that last one just a little bit, but the point is that is who Fujiko Mine is. And if I proposed to her, and she said yes, and we were joined in holy matrimony, that would stop. But she would lose part of her identity, and I would lose part of mine.

I can’t do that to her. I can’t put her in a cage, no matter how much I gild it for her.

“Thanks for rescuing me,” she says. “That’s the first genuinely nice thing a guy has done for me in a long time.”

“Really?”

“I don’t meet nice guys very often.”

“That’s a shame.”

We continue down the street. I hope that my safe house is, well, safe. But at the moment, it’s the only place either of us can go to. We don’t have any money. No doubt those goons and whoever their boss is have whatever hotel she was staying at under surveillance. I don’t have the keys to the apartment, but I do know the security on the place; it’s designed to keep _other_ people out. I start to look around as if taking in the nightlife, but really I’m scanning the crowd for any tails. I notice Fujiko doing the same, studying every passerby for ill intent. It’s easy to lose pursuers in a crowd, but it’s easy to get ambushed as well.

“So what did you do to their boss?” I ask.

“What?”

“Those guys back there, you said you ripped off their boss? Must have been somebody pretty big for them to send a bunch of thugs after a beautiful lady such as yourself.”

“You could say that,” she sighs. “I just tried to take a couple hundred thousand euro from his safe… and a few gemstones.”

“What?!”

Fujiko laughs. “Kidding, kidding! I was tired of our relationship so… I tried to get out.”

I stop and study her. Her makeup can’t fully cover the yellowing of an old bruise on her cheek, and a faint line around her neck. She lets me carefully take her arm from under the jacket draped over her shoulders. There are several bruises up and down it. The bruises I saw earlier, I realize now they were too old to be from those goons and being thrown to the street. And one is in the shape of a hand...

“Oh, Fujiko…”

“It’s… it’s okay...” she says. She looks down at the ground. “I figured that since he let me out of my cage, this would be my best chance at escape. That thing about the money and gems… I wasn’t entirely kidding. I did try to steal from him a few years ago, but I made a stupid mistake and got caught and… I guess it’s what I deserve for trying to steal from, well...”

I feel my face start to burn. Fujiko’s strategy of wooing rich and powerful men is always dangerous. It’s the reason I rarely do the same with women. Normally she can extradite herself from such situations, but more than once when her mark has caught on, I’ve had to step in and pull her out. However, in this instance, she didn’t have anyone to pull her out. She _doesn’t_ have anyone.

“Who?” I say. “Who did this?”

“What? No, Louis, if that’s your real name, I just met you.” She shakes her head. “You can’t, he’ll kill you. Listen, we need to go, he won’t stop, he’ll _never_ stop...”

“Who?!”

“ _Over there!_ ”

We both look up and watch as four men start forcing their way through the crowd. I curse and grab Fujiko by the wrist before I start running. People behind us are yelling. The crowd isn’t thick, but it does slow us down. I head for the harbor.

One of the goons starts shooting. Everyone starts screaming. I pull Fujiko closer to me and shield her as best I can as we are dragged along by the panicked crowd. What I wouldn’t give for my Walter right about now.

Or Jigen with his magnum.

Or Goemon with Zantetsuken.

Or even Pops. My Pops with his handcuff lasso contraption screaming my name at the top of his lungs.

We need to get out of the mob. It’s quickly turning into a stampede, and those idiots are still shooting. Bullets dance around my head. A man to my left cries out and falls to the ground gripping his shoulder. These guys don’t care who they hit so long as they get Fujiko.

“C’mon!”

Fujiko must be thinking what I am thinking, or something similar because she suddenly veers to the left towards a dock. There are no yachts here, the harbor is too shallow at this end. However, all of the tenders belonging to the yachts outside of the harbor are tied up here. We sprint down the dock. I can hear the goons behind us. One orders some of them to head out to the seawall. Now it’s a race to see who will reach the harbor entrance first.

“I’ll start the engine,” Fujiko pants. “You get the lines.”

She jumps into one of the tenders and begins manhandling the engine cover. I pause for a second. I love it when she’s in her serious mode. This is my Fujiko, the one I know and love. A handful of bullets striking the dock around my feet spur me back into the moment. I begin to tug at the lines holding the boat to its berth. They come loose at the same time Fujiko jump-starts the engine.

“Let’s go!” she yells.

“Hold it!”

I slowly raise my hands and curse myself for turning my back on the goons. One of them rushes up and pokes me in the back of the head with his gun. I slowly blink and look at Fujiko. She seems torn. The tender is untied, its line is slowly snaking into the water. On the other hand, I have a gun to my head.

I make the decision for her. I won’t let her be caged. I will never let her be caged.

“Fujiko,” I say. “Go find yourself a nice guy.”

In one fluid motion, I grab the gun against my head and spin to my feet. I yank the gun from the goon and clock him in the nose. Fujiko guns the engine and takes off. For a few moments, the other goons are too surprised to react. I grin and bring the gun to bear.

_“...please, Lupin, please...”_

Before any of us can pull the trigger, I hear the same roar of screeching metal as I did back in Zenigata’s apartment. This time, I catch sight of the source, but it doesn’t help much. It looks like a mass of light. Fujiko disappears into it. Suddenly it expands and pounces down on me. Everything is pain and light. I think I scream, but I can’t hear anything over the roar until that grows so loud, it becomes silence.


	3. The Gunman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, this was the first chapter I wrote for this story, and is kinda my favorite. Which is sad, because it's also the shortest. Sorry Jigen :/  
> Also, this chapter has a song, which I realized after writing the draft but decided it was too perfect and used it as inspiration for finishing it up. It's "The Boxer", I prefer the Mumford & Sons and Jerry Douglas cover but you can also go with the original Simon and Garfunkle version.

“Hey man, you all right?”

The painful light begins to fade, and a bland room comes into focus. The walls are beige, the floor is a different shade of beige, the dirty window shines with beige light, and the light fixture above casts a beige glow. I am sitting at a table, something on my lap and a man sitting across from me. He is handcuffed to the table. The top half of his face is obscured by a beat-up hat.

“Jigen Daisuke,” I sigh.

His hat twitches, signifying a raised eyebrow. “I haven't heard anyone say it that way in a while, but yes, special agent, we have already established that is the name I go by.”

“Where are we?” I ask shakily. I’m not on the street this time, but I’m still badly disorientated. I hate it. I’m used to being in control of every situation, or easily wrestling control from those who have it. Right now, I’m helpless. It's not a good feeling.

This time he tilts his head, and I spot a single, questioning eye gleaming in the shadow of the brim. “You sure you’re okay? You looked ready to pass out a second ago…”

“Just answer the question.”

“New York?”

Finally, I’m back in New York. I look down at the object on my lap. It’s a file belonging to the FBI, a file that I know I stole several years ago not long after Jigen had joined me. _That_ had been a fun heist. But this file is bigger than that one, it contains the details of far more crimes, far more killings. Wait, why do I have this file? Why are there pictures of dead guys on the table?

Wait, did he just call me _special agent_?!

Oh. Shit.

This is a freaking _interrogation_ room.

I spin around in my chair and sure enough, there is a mirror behind me, no doubt with a handful of federal agents watching and listening. I still look like me, but apparently, that doesn’t matter much. I am wearing a rather cheap suit, the kind that could be afforded by someone with the salary of an American FBI agent. Clipped to my blazer’s pocket it an ID. According to it, I am Special Agent René Sugimori in the Manhattan office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. French first name, Japanese last name, American federal agent.

Cool. Cool. I can deal with this. Deep breath, Lupin, all you have to do is interrogate one of your oldest friends. No big deal.

“So, why are you here today, Jigen?” I ask in Japanese.

Jigen stares at me like I have twelve heads. “Look, special agent, can we do this in English? I’m a bit rusty...”

“Oh, right, sorry.” I’m so used to speaking Japanese around Jigen, mostly because it’s the one language all four of us are perfectly fluent in.

“So, why are you here today, Jigen?” I ask again, this time in English.

“Jaywalking,” he deadpans.

“Well, they did get Capone on tax evasion,” I say. It’s a little weird being on the other side of an interrogation table. I flip through the file. Jigen has a rap sheet several pages long, almost all of them hits with some trespassing, grand theft auto, and a few burglary charges thrown in for good measure. Some of them I knew of, but there are others on this sheet that occurred after he and I met, and several I’ve never heard of or that he’s never spoken of.

I whistle. “This is a rather impressive resume.”

No eyes appear from beneath the hat, but I know he is glowering at me. Glowering: what a wonderfully underused term.

“You do realize you’re going away for life,” I say. Even in the normal world, Jigen would be facing a life sentence with a snowball’s chance in hell at coming up for parole. Whenever we get cornered by the cops, I worry about him more than I worry about myself. Me, I can get out of jail easy. But Jigen? Depending on the country we are in he wouldn’t even see a jail cell before they set him up with a firing squad. If I get caught, I escape or Pops swoops in and whisks me away. If Jigen gets caught, he _dies_.

I had never really asked why Jigen stuck around. I hired him for a job, sure, but he never really left. Sometimes I tease him about it, and he says he sticks around because I owe him a duel (he’s not first in line), or that I pay well (which is bullshit, I don’t pay him he just takes what he wants or gets a cut. Buying him his favorite cigarettes doesn’t count as a salary). If you had asked me when we first met, I would have said it was because he was looking for a good time, and I was cuter than his last boss. Then he would have punched me and threatened to shoot me and we’d laugh.

Jigen shrugs. “For the short time I have left. I don’t expect to be in this world for much longer.”

“And why is that?” Even with his rap sheet, it would take a while for Jigen to be executed from death row. Not to mention several of the hits he is being accused of are in other countries who would love to get a chance at him. He could rot away in a cell for years before they got around to sitting him in the chair.

“I’ve made enemies, special agent. Lots of enemies: some small fry, some run countries. They all want me dead. I’m a man marked for death the moment I walk into prison.”

“Then why stay in the killing business as long as you have?”

“What other business is there? I can’t go straight, tried that once. More than once. I don’t have the business sense to run my own group. I’m too old to start over. I’m just a man with a gun who is a decent shot and has been too stubborn to die, and that’s about all I have going for me.”

Jigen sounds tired. No, not tired: _exhausted_. I study him a bit more and start to notice slight physical differences between the Jigen sitting in front of me, and the Jigen I know as my partner. The nicotine stain on this Jigen’s fingers is more pronounced. He is missing his jacket and tie and has his sleeves rolled up. I recognize some of the scars on his forearms, but there are a number of other scars I don’t recognize. The back of his left hand is one massive scar like he was branded or burned. But it’s his hair that makes me pause. Jigen is a few years older than me, not old enough to be my father (maybe Goemon’s if he was an early bloomer), but enough to be an older brother. That being said, it’s natural that he has developed a few gray hairs, both from age and from the job. And probably more than a few from my antics. This Jigen has more gray hairs. His beard is salted with them, and they form little silver streaks against his natural black-brown.

I begin to realize that, whatever the reason he was actually arrested for, he doesn’t care about the consequences. He knows he’s done wrong, and he wants it to end. He’s wanted the world over by law enforcement and criminals alike. That kind of stress isn’t good for a man’s soul. I doubt this Jigen has gotten a good nights sleep without worrying about not waking up in the morning in quite some time. He doesn’t want to fight anymore. He doesn’t want to run anymore. Prison would be safer, but only marginally. It wouldn’t be hard for someone who really wanted him dead to set up an accident of some kind. No matter where he goes, this Jigen is a man marked for death.

Wait, is that why he stuck around?

That was one thing that Jigen had mentioned once one night after several drinks: he was tired of the killing business. He knew I was uneasy with truly professional killers, with men who enjoyed death, but Jigen didn’t enjoy death and killing. He found no joy in it. In fact, I think he was – is – afraid of what might happen if he ever did find joy in it. Over the years with me, Jigen had shifted from hit-man to trick-shot. He shot to wound, not kill. He was tired of taking lives on a regular basis and tired of getting paid to do it. That isn’t to say he doesn’t shoot to kill, just less often.

I had given him a way out of the life of a hit man. A way out _this_ Jigen never had because he never met me.

Just like Zenigata was never assigned my case.

Just like Fujiko...

Oh shit, this really is the Twilight Zone.

“One more question,” I say, “Do you know a man called Lupin the Third?”

This time, both eyes appear from under the hat. “I’ve heard of him, but I’ve been lucky enough to never actually cross paths with him.”

“You’ve never met him?”

“No, not in person. If I had, I don’t know if I would be here. I’ve had a few people request my services to rub him out, offered me nice paychecks too, but I turned each of them down.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Jigen laughs. “Agent, you _know_ why. The man isn’t _human_. I did, at one point, accept a contract to take him out. He left me a message. It… look, I’ve been a gun for hire my entire life, I’m not unfamiliar with death. Death and I are old friends. I’ve seen people die in more ways than you can imagine, not all of them pretty. But the scene he left behind? The scene he left specifically for _me_ as a warning? It still haunts me. The man is ruthless and cunning and can hold grudges for years. I returned the down payment from that job and never looked back.”

“You’re afraid of him.”

“And you’re not?”

There is some fear welling up inside of me. When I was first starting out, I was a lot more… dangerous. I was trigger-happy. I killed a few people, more than a few people. But that was because I thought it was what you did. That it was how to make people respect you. But that was back when…

Back when I had something to prove, and some _one_ to try and prove it to.

Someone I haven’t thought of in years.

We both look up as the door opens, and an actual FBI agent walks in. He motions for me to follow him out of the interrogation room. I stand up, but first walk around the table and bend down to whisper to Jigen.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

“Save me?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” I swallow and briefly wonder if René Sugimori is an actual person before I place my mouth on Jigen’s. For a moment, he struggles in surprise but then dives right in. He smells the same as he always does: mid-grade cologne and cigarette smoke, with the undertones of gunpowder and coffee. I drop his file and twist my fingers into his hair, knocking his hat askew. He turns his body to face mine, tugging at the chains around his wrists.

“Sugimori!” the agent screams.

We ignore him.

I want this moment to last. I want it to keep going, to just consume this twisted reality I have been trapped in. I want to grab Jigen and run, I want to give him the freedom that I gave the other him, my partner, the _real_ Jigen. No matter what realty I’m in, I don’t want him to…

There is a screech of metal, just like before. My eyes snap open, and a machine of light barrels into the room. The survival instinct tells me to dive out of the way, to save myself. Instead, I hold on to Jigen. I don’t let him go.

_“...Lupin, come back...”_

We don’t let go until we are both consumed by the light and the pain, and all feeling fades away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original-original version of this story, which was "our Lupin finds himself in a straight up AU and almost makes a deal with the devil", I had Jigen as an officer from the NYPD assigned to Interpol and partnered with Zenigata, and they had actually caught Lupin the Third. Because let's face it, Jigen and Zenigata would be unstoppable. He was also married to Fujiko (whaaaaat???). It was to start out as seeing the characters if they hadn't become criminals and that they were happy and productive members of society, but then Lupin discovers all is not as it seems in this "perfect" world. Zenigata's chapter is a holdover from that story and remained mostly unchanged as a concept, and this one is a modified version because in the original-original Jigen was accused of corruption and Lupin impersonated the officer interrogating him. The next chapter is Goemon and is also a variation of the concept I had for him in the original-original.


	4. The Swordsman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't seen The Fuma Conspiracy, the CliffNotes are: Goemon is getting married, ninjas crash the wedding and make off with the bride, Zenigata comes out of retirement to catch Lupin, hijinks and adventure ensue. I hopefully explain Murasaki's character well enough. On a side note, if you haven't seen it, try and find it or at least find the car chase scene. It's the Cagliostro car chase on steroids with Zenigata and is a great piece of animation.  
> This chapter is a bit heavy.

I wake up, and the smell of mid-grade cologne and cigarettes, with undertones of gunpowder and coffee, slowly dissipates on the salt breeze. The air is heavy, and the clouds above look ready to burst. The grass tickles my skin. I have been transported once more, though to where I’m not entirely sure. For a few moments, I lay there and collect myself, listening to the gulls and the ocean crash on nearby rocks.

At this point, I know this is a fantasy of some sort: a dream, vision, a nightmare, something other than reality. The problem is, for the first time in my life, I have no idea how to escape. The theories behind lucid dreams require that the dreamer is aware they are dreaming. However, I am very much aware I am dreaming, and I have yet to summon the multitude of beautiful ladies or start flying. Therefore: not dreaming in the traditional sense.

I swear if Rod Serling starts narrating, I will shoot him.

“At last.”

I sit up and look around. I now see that I am lying by a cliffside, with a spectacular sunset slowly inching its way down into the sea. Off to my left is a man sitting on a rock. He is wearing a lilac kimono and gray hakama. He turns his head, and the edges of his mouth twitch upwards.

“You are awake,” Goemon Ishikawa XIII says.

At least, I think it’s Goemon. It has to be Goemon, no one else in this day and age dresses like that unless it is some special occasion.

“How long have I been out?” I ask.

“Not long,” he replies. “You are not who I was expecting, but I welcome your company all the same.”

I can feel his eyes studying me as I get up and walk over to a rock next to his. Goemon is the only person I know whose powers of observation rival or even surpass my own. The man is impossible to sneak up on; trust me, I’ve tried. He is also one of the few people capable of getting the drop on me. I try to appear non-threatening and relaxed, but remain ready to dive out of the way should he unsheathe Zantetsuken.

As I sit, I subject Goemon to my own studying gaze. He is dressed as he always is, and has one hand tucked into his kimono while the other sits on the sword resting on his shoulder. I nearly gasp as I get a good look at his face. Goemon has boyish good looks that hide his warrior nature. His stoic exterior rarely cracks to reveal his inner feelings. Jigen and I used to have contests to see who could make Goemon laugh first.

At least, my Goemon is like that. The first thing I notice about this Goemon is the sadness in his eyes. The second is the long scar running down the length of the left side of his face: starting at the hairline, barely missing his eye, and reaching down across his lips to his chin. It’s not an old scar, it’s still light pink rather than a faded silver, but it makes him look older, much older. I realize I’m staring when he shifts his head so I cannot see the entire scar.

“Do we know each other?” he inquires.

“I know you,” I sigh, wishing I had a cigarette. “But I have a feeling you don’t know me.”

He shakes his head. “I do not, however when you first saw me, you looked at me like you were seeing an old friend for the first time in a long while.”

After a few moments, he adds, “I am waiting for an old friend.”

“You are?”

He nods.

“Who?”

“I am waiting for Death.”

He unfolds his hands and lifts Zantetsuken from its resting place against his shoulder so that it is parallel with the ground. Goemon then unsheathes it slightly, just enough to see a short stretch of the blade. I know the blade well: I have fought alongside it, and also against it. It is flawless Japanese steel, unmatched by any other blade in the world, whether Eastern or Western made. Normally, Zantetsuken shines with an almost unnatural sheen; partially due to Goemon’s meticulous and regular maintenance of the blade, but also due to the sword’s supernatural nature. However, there are times when the sword develops a peculiar blemish: a “shadow”, a darkening of the steel. As much as I don’t normally believe in such superstitions, I have learned to heed the sword’s shadowy omens over the years. When the shadow appears, death is close by.

And right now, the steel of Zantetsuken is practically black.

“The shadow has been growing for days,” Goemon says. “I fear there is no escaping it this time.” He sheathes the sword and returns it to rest on his shoulder. “I will not run. I simply regret that my legacy will end here.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

Goemon gazes thoughtfully out to sea. “I was trained in the ways of death. I was unmatched in my skills, and numerous men have met their end by the edge of my sword. However… when it mattered most, I could not protect the one I loved. I shall pass from this world, and take all that I have learned with me. The world has no need for another like me.”

Goemon’s entire life has revolved around his skills as a swordsman. He does not take defeat of any kind lightly. Failing to protect someone would explain his melancholic mood. Goemon has an odd record with women, he does not actively seek out relationships, in fact, he often tries to get out of them. But there have been a few women over the years who stirred some feelings within him. But only one… oh...

“...Murasaki...”

His head snaps around. “What did you say?”

I didn’t realize that I had said her name out loud. Goemon changes his grip on the sword’s hilt. I raise my hands.

“What happened to Murasaki?” I ask. Murasaki Suminawa: the one girl lucky enough to convince Goemon to marry her. Unfortunately, the marriage fell through. In fact, it never went through thanks to the Fuma clan, but I knew for a fact that Goemon continued to love her even after he walked away. She was everything he was not: outgoing, bubbly, curious, modern… she completed him in a way no one else could.

“I had given up the life of an assassin when I married Murasaki,” Goemon says. His voice sounds far away. “We had a simple life, but we were happy. I gave up my sword. One day, I returned home to find everything on fire. I searched for Murasaki, but when I found her, she was in the arms of the man who started the fire. I… I failed her. I was not fast enough to stop him from killing my wife and unborn child.”

I want to say something, but can’t. All I can think is that I am a horrible person for even mentioning her name.

“We fought. He was the one to give me this scar.” He traces the line along his face. “He escaped my blade that day. I was the only man to teach him that not everything in this world is his to steal. He had come for my Zantetsuken and its secret, instead, he was forced to flee from it.”

I am afraid to ask but do anyway. “...Do you know who he was?”

“Lupin the Third.”

Ice fills my veins. _I killed Murasaki_? No, not me, some other me that exists in this world. _I_ would never do that; I can’t kill a woman, let alone one carrying a _child_ within her. Suddenly what Jigen said back in the interrogation room makes more sense. How he was afraid of me.

I am afraid of me.

I’m also a little more afraid of the man sitting next to me. In my line of work, it’s not uncommon for people to want me dead, but of all those who have tried over the years, Goemon Ishikawa probably came the closest more than once. For the first few weeks, after he joined Jigen and me, I could barely spend any time in the same room as him without my gun close by. Not that it would have been any use, but still, I had seen up close and personal what the man was capable of. He was impossible to read. It was a while before I grew out of that habit, and learned to really trust him. But for years Goemon made it clear that the only reason he had joined my crew was so he could learn from me so that when the day came he could strike me down. In the meantime, he would make sure that, in the end, _he_ was the one to strike me down. He was my own personal shadow of death.

Eventually, that dynamic changed. Sure, he still took offense whenever someone tried to kill me, but thrusting his sword through my heart stopped being his only purpose. He opened up, just enough for me to open up to him. I know it wasn’t easy for him, but he soon learned that there was more to life than just dedication to his blade. The guy is a fantastic cook! Despite being the youngest and newest member of my crew, Goemon became the rock of my gang: the person I could rely upon to stay cool under pressure when everything else was going to shit. He, along with Jigen, kept me grounded. At least, as grounded as I can be.

Right now, I could really use them both. I feel like a kite trapped in a storm, and my rope is beginning to fray.

Goemon lets his tears fall as he remembers a lost love. Suddenly, his face hardens. “Is that why you are here, Lupin? To see me cross into the next world?”

Neither of us moves. His gaze pins me to the rock, and I have nowhere to seek cover from Zantetsuken. Not that I can take any kind of cover from Goemon and his weapon. The sword can slice through anything, and Goemon is as fast as Jigen’s trigger finger. Moments pass, though they feel like hours. Finally, I find my voice.

“I am not the Lupin you know,” I say. “Honestly, I don’t know what I am now. I am Lupin the Third, yes, but I am a different Lupin than the one who... Where I am from, you and I are allies, we’re friends! You’re like my little brother. I didn’t kill Murasaki, I helped you save her. For some reason, I’m being shown my friends as if they never met me. I’ve seen everybody: you, Jigen, Fujiko, even Zenigata! I just… I just don’t know why!”

I bite back a scream. I want to scream, I want to punch something. I want things to start making sense. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the tears from escaping. I want things to be the way they are supposed to be. I want us all to be together again, to be a…

Family.

Is that what this is about?

“I’m sorry, Goemon,” I say. “I’m sorry you have gone through all this pain… all because of me...”

“No.”

I look up. Goemon is studying me, but he is not a tiger ready to pounce.

“My pain is not your fault,” Goemon says. “The man who killed my wife would never say these things. When you saw me, you looked at me as if I was an old friend. So I wish to ask a favor of you, as a… friend.”

“A friend?”

“I am waiting for my death. Would you… would you wait with me?”

Goemon is a hard man to read; he keeps his emotions and thoughts close to his chest. But like all humans, he has a few tells if you know where to look. Like the small flaring of his nose when he’s angry, or how the corner of his left eye twitches if he’s annoyed but his right eye twitches if he is amused. Right now, he is biting his cheek: a rare tell I have only seen a handful of times before.

I smile. “It would be my pleasure.”

So we wait. My Goemon has tried numerous times to teach me how to meditate, only to give up when my attention is dragged elsewhere. But right now, all of his teachings come back to me. I begin to think of my crew, and how over the years we’ve evolved from a bunch of criminals to a group of people who would do anything for each other. How, over the years, a band of misfits became a family.

A family that didn’t exist in this reality, all because they never met me.

Pops was never assigned to my case, and so he has no purpose.

Fujiko never stole my heart, and so she is broken and caged.

Jigen never crossed my path, and so he is a dead man walking.

Goemon never followed me, and so he is alone in the world.

And me? What am I if I never met them?

There is a screech and crash of metal, and painful white light descends upon me and Goemon.

_“...Stay strong, Lupin...”_

I have a feeling I’m about to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, in my defense, this is the first time I have ever used this site and its tagging system, so I am going to amend the "Implied/Referenced Character Death" to "Minor Character Death". Or just add the latter. I don't know. I didn't know the latter was a tag until about five minutes ago. Thoughts?  
> This chapter originally took place in the future with an older Goemon, but I decided since there was no time travel involved with the others that it didn't really make sense to only do it with Goemon.


	5. The Thief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember back in the first chapter when I said this was 4/5th of the way written? I was in the process of writing this one, and the epilogue/tag that comes after. At that time I had three versions of the chapter going. Part of this chapter was the first thing I wrote for this story during a very slow day at work, and I wanted to know why Lupin was facing his evil twin.  
> After this is a short epilogue, I'll probably post that pretty soon.

I wake up in the woods. It’s dark, save for the half-moon that occasionally appears from behind windblown clouds. I stumble over tree roots and rocks until I come across an abandoned dirt road. With no other options, I follow it. Wherever it leads, I will find answers.

Eventually, I reach a gated archway and wall. The gate is a massive, ornate cast iron affair with spiral and flower motifs. The gate and wall speak of a refined nature long since gone. However, the moonlight reveals a different story. My eyes are accustomed to seeking out small details in minimal light. The rust on the gate, while real, does not compromise its structural integrity. Also, the large lock is fairly new, much more modern than the gates themselves. Not to mention the hinges show signs of being recently oiled. The road I just followed is overgrown, but the tire ruts are bare of any grasses and show signs of recent travel. The wall, while it appears to be crumbling, is also sound and probably is reinforced. The moonlight glints off of razor wire strung up along the top of the wall. The trees outside of the wall have been carefully trimmed so that no branches capable of carrying a person’s weight reach onto the grounds.

In other words, it is a well-manicured facade of forgotten old-world opulence.

The moon also reveals another detail that makes my heart skip a beat or two. Above the gate, at the top of the archway, sits a crest of a running wolf. So, this is where I’ve ended up. I should have known.

Despite the lack of obvious routes, it isn’t hard for me to scale the wall and drop down onto the grounds. I begin to force my way through the brambles, ignoring the nicks and scratches and minor tears in my clothes. I have to work slowly to minimize the amount of noise I make. If this is the place I think it is, then I have to also be mindful of traps.

Finally, I make it to the other side and emerge into a beautiful classic French garden with a chateau overlooking it. I can’t help but scowl at the building. I have mixed memories of the place: some good, some bad, all a little painful. Of course _I_ would be here. Of course it would still be standing in this mirrored reality when I burned it down years ago.

With a shrug, I make my way towards the house. Like the gate and the wall, it looks dilapidated and abandoned, but a quick inspection reveals that the glass in the windows is new, and the windows themselves are alarmed. I can’t see inside, but I suspect that you can see out. So the windows are out, but if I remember correctly there are plenty of other ways into this place like…

I don’t know where it came from.

I don’t know how I missed it.

Maybe my memory is a bit fuzzier than I thought.

All I know is right now, I’m in pain. A lot of pain. My body seizes. I think I might have let out a scream of some kind but I’m not sure.

Everything hurts. That’s all I know.

Even after the electrical current stops, I can’t move. I can barely breathe, air moves in and out of my lungs via small, hitching breaths. Two human forms appear above me. They are talking but I can’t make out the words. What little air I have gathered is expelled as one drives his foot into my chest.

Damn it, Lupin, you _idiot…_

 

I shouldn’t be surprised that they caught me. I _was_ breaking into a thief’s stronghold, after all. I’m not surprised, just embarrassed I suppose. Maybe a little ashamed as well. At one point this place was, in a way, my stronghold. My playground. I could easily move in and out of this building and its grounds without a single soul knowing, but I hadn’t even broken into the house before I was caught. The only saving grace is I was caught by a trap I didn’t know about. I had avoided all of the ones I did.

Once they realized I was awake, they gathered me up from the storage closet of a cell I had been stuffed into. My hands were cuffed behind my back, and a loop placed around my neck meant that if I tried to fiddle with the locks, I’d end up strangling myself. Not a problem if I was standing still, but it’s kind of hard to hide the fact that you’ve cut off your windpipe while being led down a hall by several goons with guns, all of them pointing at you.

I spend too much time looking at one of the paintings that line the walls, and one of the goons jabs me in the ribs. “Keep moving.”

“Watch it,” I chide. “You’ll wrinkle my jacket.”

He responds by pulling on my cuffed hands, which tightens the loop around my neck. I gasp for air, and after a few moments, he lets go. He smirks. I glare at him. He glares back.

The scene is like something out of a dream. The place is just as I remember it, almost nothing is out of place. As if the further tease me, my brain flashes as an image of a younger me running through these halls. Fuck you, brain, fuck you.

We reach a set of double doors, and I am ushered past them with my guards. This corridor, however, is different. Keeping pace with my guards, I marvel at the works of art lining the room: Van Goth, Cezanne, Rothko, Hokusai, Rembrandt, Warhol, Degas, Vermeer, even a damned da Vinci. The paintings conform to no single style or era or size appropriate for stealing, they’re just hung up on the wall like trophies. The collection is not limited to paintings: artifacts of countless cultures are in display cases. Rare books line a few bookcases. Gems of fantastic size and color sparkle and shine under glass. It is an unrivaled display of art and wealth.

And all of it is fake.

Every piece is a genuine reproduction, perfect down to the last detail. The only things that give the works away are the little details I recognize as my own. Proudly displaying these items is a statement, one that says: “I stole these items, but only I may gaze upon their true beauty. You must be content with the reproductions.”

What a stuck up prick.

We reach the end of the display hall and stop in front of the next set of doors. One of the guards speaks in low tones into his earpiece and jams his gun into my side when he gets a response. The doors open, and he pushes me.

“Go,” he growls.

I shake myself to full height and glare at him before saying, “Thank you.”

I’m still a full six centimeters shorter than he is. I stride forward confidently, refusing to be intimidated or cowed by the two goons who accompany me. The doors close, and I get my first good look at the chamber. I whistle as I take in the decoration: all jewel colors and gold leaf. Over-the-top pretentious throne room, not the dark-paneled study it was the last time I was here.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Even though I knew what to expect, I am still slightly taken aback hearing my voice call out, though I am not the one speaking. In the center of the room is a dais and throne, and lounging on that throne with two beautiful women wearing next to nothing practically hanging off of him, is a very upset looking me.

No, not me. Not the _real_ me.

The not-me sits up. He looks at the women and orders them to leave. They stand and bow, and hurry out of the room via a side door. Once they leave he turns his attention back to me.

He narrows his eyes. I can feel him studying me. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“I am Lupin the Third,” I say with a bow. I manage not to choke myself in doing so. No one is amused or impressed by this feat.

He stands up and descends from the dais. He is dressed in all black: shirt, jacket, pants, tie, everything is black. It makes his skin look paler than it really is, like a phantom. The ensemble makes my own look like a paint factory explosion. The only non-black piece of clothing is a red handkerchief in his breast pocket. It is that red splotch, the drop of blood red on a black background, that draws my eye. It’s as if all the blood this man has spilled over the years had come together and congealed into a single spot.

The not-me roughly grabs my face. “Not a mask or make-up...” he mutters, manipulating my head. “And no signs of surgery...”

Before I can react he has whipped out his Walther and presses it to my temple. “ _Wh_ _o_ _are you?_ ” he hisses.

“I am you,” I reply. “Or rather, an alternative you, from a different reality.”

“You better come up with a better story than that.”

“It’s the truth! Look, I don’t know what’s going on or how I got here, but somehow I’ve ended up in a world where I – you – didn’t follow the path I did… wow, that sounds dumb.”

The Walther clicks. I close my eyes and wait. It’s an intimidation tactic, he’s trying to scare me. I think. I hope.

The gun goes off centimeters from my head, the bullet slamming into the marble floor next to my foot. I flinch and bite the inside of my lip as my heartbeat spikes. My ears start ringing. The not-me chuckles in morbid amusement at my sign of weakness.

Again, he presses the gun to my head. “Who. Are. You?”

“I already told you,” I hiss through clenched teeth. “I am Lupin the Third.”

After a few seconds, he retracts the Walther. “Okay then, let’s say I believe you. Tell me something only I would know.”

I open my eyes and glance at the guards. “How much do you want them to know?”

He follows my gaze and waves them away. “Leave us.”

“But boss...”

“Leave!”

I watch the goons leave, and wonder if my voice is ever that harsh. He sounds like he’s ordering two dogs around, not people. The two men are just underlings… nonsalaried workers easily replaced should they end up on the wrong end of a cop’s bullet. I then look around and notice we truly are alone. If I was him, I would have at least Jigen or Goemon lurking somewhere, even if it meant they heard something. I’d rather than than a bullet to the face, and he doesn’t have Jigen or Goemon.

There is no one else in the room, just two men called Lupin the Third.

As soon as the door closes, he glares back at me. “Now, what do you have to say?”

I go for the metaphoric jugular. Maybe it’s because I’m getting tired of this reality, of seeing my friends who aren’t my friends, of being ferried from one bad dream to another. Or maybe I’m just tired of _him_. I begin to talk about the one subject that will put us on equal footing. The one subject I _know_ nobody else knows about. The subject I’ve never discussed with Jigen or Goemon or Fujiko, and that I made damn sure years ago that Pops or any other law enforcement officer would never find out either.

I tell him about the tiny apartment across from the park, about the ice cream man who came on Fridays, about the flower shop, about the smell of jasmine tea. I tell him about this house.

I tell him about our mother.

I’m only a few sentences in when his face begins to fall. The confidence and arrogance melts away into confusion, then shock, then frustration, and finally anger. He subconsciously lowers the gun. I can tell he wants me to stop, but I don’t. I can’t. He has forced me to open a box I had shoved to the back of my memory years ago, and he now has to deal with the consequences. I keep talking, bringing up memories I thought I had forgotten.

“Enough!” he roars. “I’ve heard enough!”

I stop and watch him. I can understand what he’s going through: some stranger with his face has just shown up and told him intimate details about his childhood. I would be pretty shaken up too. He struggles to keep his emotions in check. Finally, he smiles and starts to laugh. It is a hollow, mocking sound.

“So what is it you want?” he asks. “Money? Power? Maybe a woman or two? A small country?”

“Honestly,” I reply as I reach up and remove the loop from around my neck. “I want to go home.”

His eyebrows raise up in surprise but then return to their normal levels. He is facing himself, after all, and such trivial restraints would never hold him for very long.

“I have to say, it’s been a while since I’ve seen this place,” I say as I look around. “You’ve changed it up a bit.”

“Well, it did need some updating.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Oh? Let me guess, you kept the original decor.”

“No, I burned it.”

He looks at me as if I slapped him across the face. “You _what_?”

“Oh don’t worry, I took everything of importance,” I say. “I just didn’t want anyone else to take control of it when everything went to shit after _he_ died. Besides, I wanted to forge my own path, not be hung-up with the past.”

It wasn’t a total lie. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone other than a Lupin having the place, but since I was the only one bearing the name and had no interest in running an international crime syndicate or settling down, I made sure no one would have the family home. Being an angry kid with a chip on his shoulder had something to do with it as well. Like I said: a lot of memories with this place, some good, some bad, all of them a little painful.

“I didn’t want to be him,” I continue. “I swore I never would be my predecessor.”

The not-me sneers. “Then you are a fool.”

He spins around and the shadow-black jacket flairs out like a short cape. He saunters back over to the throne and plops back down into it. “Why would I ever give up such power?”

“Because power corrupts,” I say. “And it’s hardly any fun operating from behind a desk when I could be out performing the deeds myself. I am proud of my heritage, but I don’t want to be weighed down by it.”

I extend my hand and point at him. “Not to mention that throne of yours looks awfully lonely. You don’t have anyone to share it with other than whatever whores you keep locked in your harem. Not even a close adviser or some gallant knight to stand by your side and protect you, let alone a queen. You may be the King of Thieves, Emperor of the Underworld, but you’re the loneliest man in the world because of it.”

He sits up. “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“I might have burned this place to the ground. I may not have a criminal network that holds the world hostage. I might live from job to job at times. I might have the world’s most stubborn police inspector hot on my tail, but I have people around me who are more than just hired thugs. I trust them with my life, and they trust me with theirs. You? You just sit all high and mighty in your castle, surrounded by guards and traps, too afraid to step outside. When was the last time you pulled a job yourself? When was the last time you _trusted_ another person?”

I cry out as his gun barks and pain explodes from my leg. His gun sits smoking in his hand. I didn’t even see him pull it out. I’ve hit a nerve, one that runs deep. Breathe, Lupin, just breathe, isolate the pain and put it in its place. I can’t let it cloud my thoughts. Not now.

Blood leaches through my fingers.

“Why would I ever need other people?” he roars. “What has the world ever done to me other than mock me? Why should I trust anyone but myself? All they ever do is take the money and run. Violence is the only universal language, fear the only true control over a soul.”

There was a time when I would have agreed with him. Before my current crew, almost all of my past partnerships had ended… badly. Very badly. The angry kid who had burned down his family home had become even angrier. But then I hired Jigen and he stuck around. I met Fujiko and fell in love. Zenigata was assigned to my case, and wouldn’t leave me alone. I faced off with Goemon and found a worthy opponent and loyal friend.

They had mellowed me out. They had shown me that the world wasn’t full of purely ruthless people, that there was some light in the underworld. They taught me the life lessons I never learned from my blood-based family: laughter, joy, wonder, loyalty, love. My anger didn’t consume me like it did the man standing before me. He had been burned and burned and burned until finally, he wanted to see the world burn in return.

All this time I thought I was saving them, but really they were saving _me_.

“My _predecessor_ , as you call him, ran the Lupin empire into the ground. I resurrected it, I rebuilt it, I _expanded_ it. And what did you do? You became nothing more than a petty thief,” he sneers. “You gave up a legacy to become some common robber.”

“I gave up a legacy to build my own.” I manage to stand up. “I didn’t let my blood define who I was, who I am. I didn’t let my distrust of the world turn me against it. True, I am a thief, and I have done things, terrible things, things I am not proud of. But you, sir, are a monster. The kind that keeps people up at night, worrying that you’ll crawl out from under the bed and swallow them in their sleep. The kind that murders a man’s wife and unborn child, the kind that sends a gruesome message to a man who is just a hired gun, the kind that keeps an amazing woman caged because she tried to steal from him. I am a thief, but at least I have some kind of heart beating in my chest. You just have a void. You have nothing. You are surrounded by beauty yet fail to see it!

“You’re the me that lurks in the shadows, the me I can become if I’m pushed too far, and the me I would have become if _they_ hadn’t pulled me back from the brink. You know what? I’m not afraid of you. I pity you. And I swear I will never be you!”

_“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”_

The not-me stutters like he’s caught in a strobe light. He rushes forward and grabs me by the neck. I try to break his grip, but it is like iron, cold and solid. His face twists until it is a grotesque caricature of my own.

_“Didn’t you tell them you didn’t need them?”_

I gasp as images flood into my brain. The job gone wrong. The argument. The yelling. The _“fine who needs you anyway?”_. Doors slamming. Me storming out. The screech of metal, the machine of light. Headlights. Pain. Darkness. Waking up on the other side of the globe.

No, waking up on the other side of the vale.

“I didn’t mean it,” I gurgle. It sounds high-pitched, like a child who has broken something and is begging for forgiveness.

“Oh, but you did,” the not-me hisses, his voice like nails on a chalkboard. “And that’s why I’m here because for that brief moment you opened the door to my cage, you gave me the option of coming out.”

Oh God, it hurts. Everything hurts. I feel my blood running down my leg. I look down. One of his hands is around my neck, the other grips my arm. Shadows spread out from his hands, wrapping around my body and his, merging us together. I can feel his anger. No, no, stop. Please. Please!

Jigen… Goemon… Fujiko… help me. Please. Somebody help me!

“They can’t hear you,” he whispers. His eyes burn red like coals. “Now it’s time to switch places. This time I will lock you away, and I will make sure to throw away the key. I will teach the world to fear the name Lupin once more.”

I can barely move. It’s cold. The darkness… I’m drowning. My strength is gone. I close my eyes.

_“What?!”_

I open them. Around his wrist is a set of handcuffs tied to a long rope. We both turn to follow the rope, and I laugh weakly in relief. On the other end is my own shining bad penny: Inspector Zenigata.

“Lupin, you’re under arrest.”

He pulls, and the not-me is dragged off of me. I collapse and gasp for air. The not-me roars in anger and tries to rush Pops but is stopped by a bullet to the leg, courtesy of Fujiko.

Fujiko grins. “Payback’s a bitch.”

“I’d say.” Jigen appears from behind the throne, Magnum in hand. The not-me reaches for his gun, and Jigen expertly shoots it from his hand.

A hand appears above me, and I reach out and take it. Goemon pulls me to my feet and helps support my weight. Together we limp over to where the not-me is being tied down by Pops. He struggles until Goemon unsheathes Zantetsuken and places the blade to his throat.

“See?” I say. “They have my back, they will always have my back. Even Pops, though he won’t admit it. Sure, we’ve had our ups and downs, but that’s what apologies are for. I’ve said those words before, we all have, and I’m sure I’ll say them again, but I don’t intend on acting on them. Not now, not ever.”

“They’re your weakness,” he spits.

I shrug. “I’ve known that for a while.”

“They will be your downfall.”

“Maybe, but I’ll deal with that when I get there. Until then… well..." I shrug.

The not-me screams. Goemon takes his revenge, and the not-me falls silent. I stare at him. It’s weird, looking at your own lifeless body. Or rather, a phantom of it.

I look up at the sound of roaring metal. This time, the light waits, like an open portal. The roaring fades away, and in its place is a slow, steady high pitched _beep… beep… beep…_

This time, the light doesn’t consume me. I willingly enter it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I noticed that, at least in the English subs/dubs, Lupin never refers to Lupin the Second as his father. The only instance where he ever does is in the manga. Whether or not this is true, I decided to run with it because the Lupin canon at this point rivals some of the more convoluted fandoms I follow and I love it. Thus Lupin calling him his "predecessor".
> 
> On a side note, Bad Lupin is the first character I have ever written that I actually hate. Like I want to punch him in the face. Kinda sorta glad I don't have to deal with him again.


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last little bit! Switch to third person POV.

If you were to look into room 224, you would have been met with an unusual scene. Five people occupied the room. One was dressed in mostly black, with a hat that covered half of his face and an unlit cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth. Another looked like he belonged in a detective novel, complete with trench coat and fedora. He paced back and forth as if trying to think of a solution to his latest assignment. A man who could only be described as a samurai sat cross-legged in a chair in the corner. His eyes were closed and his hand rested on what was probably a very real sword. The only woman in the room sits next to the bed, worry etched across her beautiful features.

The object of her worry is the man in the bed. He is attached to almost every kind of monitor and machine you could think of. Perhaps, if his face was not so swollen and bloodied and bandaged, you could have called him handsome. Two of his four limbs were encased in casts, and the other two were wrapped in white bandages. Oddly enough, despite his lack of consciousness, he is handcuffed to the bed.

The man in the bed stirs and opens one of his eyes just a crack. The other is still too swollen to open. For a moment, his companions do not notice, but while executing one of his turns the inspector-looking man notices the gray eye watching him. His mouth hangs open in surprise and then morphs into a smile.

“Lupin!”

The reaction is instantaneous. The woman looks up. The man in black uncovers the upper half of his face. The samurai opens his eyes.

The man on the bed, Lupin, looks around at his four companions as they surround his bed. His mouth moves as if to try and form words, but he can’t find his voice.

“There was an accident,” the man in black says. “You’ve been in the hospital for three days.”

“It’s was pretty touch and go there for a bit,” the inspector adds.

Lupin lets the words filter through the haze of pain and painkillers. When they register, tears begin to well up. Again he opens his mouth, and this time he manages a weak, airy croak.

The samurai realized what he is trying to do, and places a gentle hand on Lupin’s shoulder. “It was the anger of the moment.”

Lupin nods and winces.

“Just focus on getting better, okay?” the woman says.

Lupin nods once more, this time not as much. He tries to reach for her hand but finds his own won’t extend far enough. She places her hand in his. He looks down and then looks at the inspector, annoyed.

“You’re still under arrest,” the inspector says.

Lupin blinks and then smiles. An airy laugh gurgles out of him, growing stronger and stronger with each moment. The others smile and begin to laugh as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go! I don't really have a speech prepared, so thank you so much for reading this strange little story and thank you to those of you who left me kudos and comments.


End file.
